


Born to Strange Sights

by zahnie



Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twins, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Multi, Psychic Abilities, approximately 80 percent dialogue because of who I am as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahnie/pseuds/zahnie
Summary: Parker, Hardison, and Eliot meet Sam and Dean because Sam saw Parker in a vision. Hardison is assumed to be Jake come back to life somehow, and the whole thing goes about as well as you'd expect.





	Born to Strange Sights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenmonstermash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenmonstermash/gifts).



> If thou be'st born to strange sights,  
> Things invisible to see,  
> Ride ten thousand days and nights,  
> Till age snow white hairs on thee,  
> Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,  
> All strange wonders that befell thee  
> \---from "Song" by John Donne
> 
> This fic is for greenmonstermash, without whose influence I would not be rewatching Supernatural. Thank you most sincerely for your kind beta reading and for brainstorming with me <3
> 
> Okay, so, it's post-canon for Leverage and mid-season 3 for Supernatural. Mild AU for crossover purposes and also Sam's still doing his vision thing
> 
> Enjoy!

“Parker, you have to come down here if you want your coffee, I'm not climbing up there,” Eliot mutters.

“Okay,” Parker sighs and turns her comm off. It's not like it's a hard climb. She could do it holding two coffees.

She packs up the last of her gear into her duffle, lowers it to the ground, tosses the rope down, and free-climbs down after it. She jogs casually up the alley to the street where Eliot and Hardison are waiting.

Post-recon coffee runs are becoming a regular thing. Parker likes it.

It isn't raining, which is rare for Portland this time of year, so lots of people are sitting at the outside tables of the coffee shop. Hardison grins at her as he sees her coming.

“Excuse me?” a guy behind Parker asks. She whirls around.

A very tall white guy, probably the same age as Hardison, blinks at her like she surprised him. He has floppy brown hair that would be falling into his face if it was just a bit longer. He smiles and says, “Sorry, this is a weird question, but did your mother die when you were six months old?”

Parker drops her bag. By the time it hits the sidewalk, she is already out of grabbing-range, running.

~

Eliot stood up as soon as Parker turned around and started forward when she ran, so he gets to the guy who talked to her first. “Hey!” Eliot yells. “What did you say to her?”

Hardison is right behind him, grabbing Parker's duffle bag of gear before anybody takes it.

The guy doesn't answer, just stares at Hardison like he's seen a ghost. “Jake?” he asks. “But you're dead.”

Hardison looks confused when Eliot glances at him so he puts the name aside for later. He steps forward menacingly. “Who are you?” he asks.

Another, shorter guy runs up. “What's going on—” he starts to say but stops dead when he sees Hardison. He looks just as shocked as the first guy but recovers faster. He pushes in front of the other guy, so he's nose-to-nose with Eliot. “Sam, go to the car,” he says.

“No,” Sam says. “You can see him too, right, Dean? That's Jake, right there.”

“Stop calling me Jake, I don't know any Jakes,” Hardison says. “What kind of a name is that anyway? It sounds like something you'd call a dog.”

“I can see him too,” Dean says, continuing to try to stare Eliot down.

“What the hell is going on?” Hardison asks.

Eliot has no idea. He goes back to his earlier question. “What did you say to her?” he growls to Sam, without looking away from Dean.

“Why does it matter to you?” Dean asks. “She your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, she is,” Eliot and Hardison say at the same time.

Dean looks startled. He breaks his staredown to look from Eliot to Hardison and back. “Both of you? Seriously?” he asks.

Hardison steps forward. Eliot edges over so he's still in front of him, aware he's mirroring Dean's stance with Sam.

“What did this Jake guy do to you anyway?” Hardison asks.

Dean surges forward, rage clear on his face. Eliot punches him in the stomach. They're too close together for him to get much power behind it but at least it throws Dean off his stride.

As Dean staggers, Sam tries to rush Eliot. That is a mistake.

Eliot slams his fist into Sam's solar plexus. As Sam hunches over instinctively, Eliot punches up into his jaw. Sam falls to the ground, groaning.

Behind him, he hears Hardison yell. Eliot turns in time to see Dean swipe at Hardison with a knife. Bright red blooms against Hardison's white T-shirt.

Eliot doesn't hesitate. He throws himself at Dean and tackles him to the ground, not caring where the knife goes. They fall onto Parker's bag, which Hardison must have thrown at Dean, and Dean rolls, trying to pin Eliot underneath him. Eliot kicks out. His boot catches Dean's knee solidly enough to jar both of them, but not enough to get Dean off of him.

Somehow, Dean still has the knife clutched in one hand. Eliot hits Dean's wrist with the side of his free hand to try to make Dean drop it. The knife clatters to the pavement.

Eliot shoves Dean with his other hand, trying to push him off. Dean punches him in the face. The hit knocks Eliot's head against the sidewalk. He growls and kicks Dean again in the same knee as before.

Sirens start up not too far away.

Dean raises his fist to hit Eliot again, and Sam grabs Dean's arm and pulls on it. “Dean,” he wheezes, “Cops.”

“Fuck the cops,” Dean says, through gritted teeth. But it's enough of a distraction.

Eliot surges up, pushing Dean backward into Sam's legs. Sam loses his balance and falls on Dean. Eliot stands up.

“El,” Hardison says, “We gotta go, baby.”

Eliot turns. Hardison is holding his T-shirt against his chest, but it isn't as red as Eliot feared. Shallow cut. Good. Eliot exhales.

“Stay away from us,” he snarls at Sam and Dean, who are trying to get themselves sorted out enough to stand up.

Eliot grabs Parker's bag, and he and Hardison get the hell out of there.

~

When Parker climbs through the living room window in the early evening, Hardison is wearing a different shirt and Eliot is angrily chopping things in the kitchen.

“Maybe they were just racists,” Hardison is saying. “If anybody looked that much like me, you'd think I'd know where to look for them.”

“Afghanistan,” Parker says.

Hardison jumps and Eliot looks at her sharply.

“You know something, babe?” Hardison asks.

Parker shrugs. Maybe. It's not solid enough to be worth trying to explain.

“The way he held the knife was definitely ex-Marine,” Eliot says.

Hardison looks from him to Parker. “Okaaay, looking up American troops in Afghanistan then.” He sits down in his rolly chair.

“What knife?” Parker asks. She wanders closer to look at Eliot's face. He waves her away. One of his cheek bones is slightly swollen. “What happened?” Eliot doesn't look stabbed but he could be hiding it. She steals a bit of carrot.

Hardison answers her while continuing to type. “Those guys kept calling me 'Jake' and saying I was dead, and then one of them tried to _actually_ kill me with a knife but he didn't get much of a chance because El did his thing and...” He stops talking and stares at his screen.

Parker goes over to look. Eliot leaves his little piles of vegetable cubes and follows her.

There's a headshot of Hardison, under the heading 'Private Jakob Talley: Missing, Presumed Dead.'

“That... is not me,” Hardison says slowly.

“That's your birthdate,” Eliot says.

“That's _not_ me,” Hardison says again.

Parker considers going out the window. _Well, if it makes you feel any better, I went to sleep last night in Afghanistan._ Almost Hardison's voice but not quite. The smell of pine trees and gravel and decay, the feeling of rain just about to fall. Do all of those pieces fit together or are some of them part of the dreams she never remembers?

She knew not-Hardison meant Afghanistan, just like she knew what that guy today would ask her as soon as she heard his voice.

“Parker?” Hardison asks.

She's sitting on the window sill with her hands on the latch, her body moving to protect her when her mind can't catch up. But this is home and Parker can do anything here, even think about bad stuff.

“Okay,” she says, and stands up. Hardison and Eliot are both watching her.

“Do you want to tell us?” Eliot asks. Parker's asked him that before and the echo makes her smile.

“How much salt do we have?” she asks.

Eliot stares at her. “Why do you... I opened a new box two days ago.”

Good. That's enough for the doorways and windows at least.

“Parker,” Hardison says, and she tenses because his voice is almost shaking, “Did you know about Jake?”

Her reflexive answer is _No_ but somehow, she did know a little bit. “I dreamed about him,” she says instead.

Hardison makes a face Parker can't understand.

“Just his voice,” Parker says, in case that helps. “A while ago. I didn't think it was real.” It's important Hardison knows that. She would have told him right away, even if he didn't believe her.

“How long is a while ago?” Hardison asks.

Why does that matter? “Four months and three days ago,” she says.

Hardison puts his head in his hands and stares at the floor. Eliot lays his hand on Hardison's shoulder.

Parker goes over to them, making noise on purpose so Hardison doesn't jump. She sits down on the floor in front of Hardison's chair.

“He's my brother, I think,” Hardison says, after a few minutes, still looking at the floor. “Was. Was my brother.” He sniffs.

It hurts to hear him say that. It makes Parker remember more bad stuff. She reaches out to Hardison and he takes her hand.

Eliot rubs Hardison's back. Then Hardison starts crying, and all they can do is show him they're here.

~

When Hardison stops crying, and Eliot's gone back to making dinner, Parker gets to work.

She salts all the doorways, windowsills, and walls in the apartment. It takes the opened box, the spare box and almost the whole jar of fancy salt to finish but Eliot doesn't try to stop her. He does watch her as she goes through the kitchen.

“What is it for?” he asks, quietly.

“Protection,” Parker says.

“Why now?”

“Because this is what you do when weird things happen,” Parker says. Or you leave. That's what she used to do all the time. And sleep in unexpected places.

Eliot sighs. “It's definitely been a weird day,” he says.

“Don't break the lines,” Parker says.

She finds the Sharpies next, one black and one silver. Parker tries the design out in black on her own arm. It's pretty simple, really.

“Can I draw on you?” she asks Hardison. She uses the silver on him, to make sure it stands out. She's not sure if the contrast is an important part.

“What on Earth are you drawing?” Hardison asks, when Parker is almost done. “A star on fire?”

“Anti-possession charm,” she says.

Hardison jerks but luckily, she didn't have the pen on his skin. “Don't smudge it or I'll have to start over,” Parker warns.

“Possession like _demonic_ possession?” Hardison asks.

“Yep,” Parker says. “All done.” She compares her arm with Hardison's. No breaks, every line in place.

She crosses the room to go do Eliot's charm, and make him put an ice pack on his face.

~

Alec would be totally justified in just going to bed now and not getting up until sometime next week. His head hurts from crying and the cut on his chest stings when he moves, even with Eliot's careful bandage. But there is weird fucking shit going on so he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway. And Eliot's dinner smells _amazing_.

Before Parker came over to draw on him, Alec set up a web-crawler to find out more about Jake. He's going to need to know everything. As much as possible.

One of the only things that could make finding out you have a twin brother worse is finding out that he's almost certainly dead.

He hasn't asked Parker yet how she knew how to draw an anti-possession charm. Alec always wants to know everything, but he's gotten better at not just blurting out questions. He can slow it down, okay, it's not like Eliot and Parker are going anywhere.

He starts going through various search terms with a different laptop, just to see what he can find. Salt circle, salt as barrier, true dreams, visions, dream interpretation, demon possession, charms, spells, and on and on. It's a whole folklore-mythology-Wiccan-Satanist mess out there. He's going to need Parker's help to get very far.

Alec stares at the silver star outline with its ring of filled-in flames on his arm. The lines are so precise that it almost looks like a stamp.

“Dinner's ready,” Eliot says.

Alec looks up. Parker is suspended upside down in the middle of the living room, attached to her harness rig, apparently fast asleep. Alec didn't even notice her setting it up. It just goes to show you can get used to anything.

“Come down from there, darlin',” Eliot says. He's plating the food at the kitchen counter that looks into the living room.

“Parker, wake up,” Alec says.

Her eyes open. She blinks and rotates herself upright. “Nothing,” she says, sounding disappointed.

“What's nothing?” Alec asks, as she unhooks from the rig and drops almost five feet to the floor.

“No dreams,” Parker says.

“You were only asleep for ten minutes,” Eliot says.

“Yeah, plenty of time,” Parker says.

“Nope,” Alec says, as they cross the room, “Usually, it's takes an hour and half of sleep before dreams start.”

Eliot snorts. “I can manage shorter than that,” he says. He hands plates to Alec and then Parker. The black anti-possession charm stands out against the white underside of his arm.

Alec is ready with more sleeping facts but the food distracts him. Eliot has made chicken marsala, with Marsala wine, proscuitto, and the fancy mushrooms, and he's only steamed the chopped carrots and turnips a bit so they're still sweet and slightly crunchy.

“Teach me to dream better,” Parker says, sitting down at her place at the table, between Alec and Eliot.

“You already dream better than me,” Eliot says. “You don't remember yours.”

“But now I need to,” Parker says.

Alec's stomach tightens. His food looks less amazing than a second ago. “You remembered something,” he says, trying to keep his voice light, “Maybe the true dreams can't be forgotten.”

Parker waves her fork expressively. “Only bits. Smells and feelings. And voices. I heard that guy, two nights ago.”

“The guy who talked to you?” Alec asks.

Parker nods. “He asked the same thing when I was awake today: 'Did your mother die when you were six months old?'”

Eliot and Alec look at each other. “No wonder he didn't want to tell you what he said,” Alec says to Eliot.

“What kind of a question is that?” Eliot asks, angry.

Alec really wants to know the answer now. He concentrates on his neglected dinner instead.

“Any other dreams that you remember?” Eliot asks.

“A year ago, I dreamed about a woman crying, when we were in San Diego. But that could have been somebody outside. That's what I thought it was then.” Parker steals a mushroom piece from Eliot. She goes on, “Let's put off the job, since we're not too far into it yet. We're going to need to focus on this.”

Alec and Eliot nod. Alec hasn't thought of their current job once since he and Eliot got home, so really, postponing it is for the best.

“El, this is awesome,” Alec says. “I could eat vegetables all day the way you make them.”

Eliot laughs. “You wouldn't eat them at all if I didn't make them.”

“It tastes like worry, but in a good way,” Parker says.

Eliot smiles at both of them. “Thanks,” he says.

~

After dinner, they clear the table and do the dishes, with Parker washing, Alec drying, and Eliot putting away just for a change.

“Parker, could you give me a hand with research?” Alec asks.

“Okay,” Parker says. She sits on the back of the couch with her feet on the cushions.

Eliot brings his jewelry-making supplies out and sits on the couch next to Parker. She immediately moves so her legs are on either side of him.

“Where did you learn about salt circles?” Alec asks.

“A girl in juvie told me. She said it's for protection,” Parker says. She starts playing with Eliot's hair. Eliot smiles a little bit.

“Did she tell you about charms too?” Alec asks.

“No, Archie did. He has some books.” Parker glances up. “It's a specialty thieves can do. But paintings and jewelry are better.”

And of course, Archie wouldn't want Parker to specialize in a less prestigious kind of theft. “Okay, thanks,” Alec says. “Can we play 'what's real' now?”

Parker grins. “Like when we took down that news anchor with conspiracy theories?”

Eliot looks up at Alec and winces. Maybe it's just from the pulling on his hair when he moved but it could be because they were kind of teasing Parker back then.

“Yeah,” Alec says. “Okay, so, demons are real and magic is real. Are ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“Vampires?”

“Maybe. They might be all dead now.”

“Werewolves? Shapeshifters? Elves?”

“Yes, yes, no.” Eliot gives Parker a handful of plastic pony beads and she starts threading them into his hair.

“Angels?”

“Maybe.”

“Wait,” Alec says, “Demons are for sure but angels are maybe?”

“All the bad things are real,” Parker says.

There's something in her voice like resignation. Alec decides abruptly he's heard enough about types of creature. “So, we have the charms against possession and the salt circle is for...?”

“Demons and ghosts and some other things. Not werewolves, but I have a silver knife for those.”

“ _Where_?” Alec and Eliot ask at the same time.

Parker grins.

“Okay,” Alec says, when it's clear she isn't going to answer. “What about charms and spells? Can regular people do magic?”

Parker stops grinning. “No magic.”

“How come?”

“Any magic big enough to be useful is bad. It attracts... things. A few of the charms are okay, for a while.” She shrugs. “I don't know very many.”

Alec nods. “If we can't use them anyway, that's fine,” he says. “I'll see what I can find online, thanks for your help.”

“What about those guys?” Eliot asks.

“I'll pull the security cameras near the fight,” Alec says. “But if I can't get a good shot of their faces, there isn't much I can find out, without their names.”

“Tell me about the fight,” Parker says.

Alec makes Eliot tell most of it, while he searches paranormal stuff and checks his Jake webcrawler. It's too early for much to have come up except his military record.

What if he had a family? Should Alec go meet them? How could he have not known about Jake?

The security feeds he can get are crappy and set at the wrong angles. No identification possible.

Parker touches his arm. Alec jumps. “I made noise and everything,” she complains. “Come on, let's go to bed.”

Alec glances back at his laptops. He's been searching for hours already, though it felt like minutes. “Okay,” he says.

~

“Alec.”

Alec wakes up to Parker shaking him. “Babe?” he asks, his head still full of sleep. If it was an emergency, he'd have woken up to them dragging him out of bed.

“I dreamed again,” Parker whispers.

Alec wakes up more. “What about?”

“It felt like the brewpub,” she says. “People eating, the smells. Probably the lunch rush because I could smell pulled pork and that's on special tomorrow.”

Eliot rolls over beside Alec. “How do you know what's on special tomorrow?” His voice sounds clear, like he hasn't slept yet.

Parker launches into a complicated analysis of the timing of past specials, ingredient purchasing, and literally, the phase of the moon. Alec doesn't pay attention to the details because he only has so much brainspace when woken in the middle of the night and he's using it to try to figure out why Parker would true-dream about the brewpub.

“Do you think those guys are going to be there?” he asks. None of them have been near the brewpub since the day before yesterday. Their apartment is across town in another building they own because Eliot worked too much when they lived above it.

“Yeah,” Parker and Eliot say at the same time.

“They couldn't have found us,” Hardison says, before they insult him by asking. “Trust me, there is no way.”

“They found me once,” Parker says.

They're all quiet for a moment.

Finally, Eliot says, “Well, let's talk to them tomorrow and make them not do it again.”

Alec and Parker agree, and Parker lies down again. She kisses Alec and he turns to pass the kiss to Eliot.

Eliot kisses him a little longer and hold him a little tighter than he usually does. “I'm okay,” Alec whispers to him. Eliot doesn't answer. Alec can guess what he might have said: _you might not have been_. They've all had that conversation before.

When Parker's dreams are bad, she wakes up shaking, even though she can't remember them. Alec hates those nights more than his own nightmares, which are at least a known quantity. Eliot's nightmares are the worst, though. They can't even say 'it wasn't real' to comfort him because, usually, his nightmares are based on things that really happened. And it takes forever to convince Eliot that he didn't hurt them in his sleep.

“I love you, go to sleep,” Alec whispers and he can feel Eliot sigh as he loosens his grip.

~

Sam wakes up knowing the blonde woman's name. He's not going to think about the rest of the vision right now but a name is good.

“Is it her first name or last name?” Deans asks when Sam tells him.

Sam shrugs. “It's something anyway.” They're still at the motel, even though it's nearly noon.

“Great,” Dean sighs. “More weird shit.”

“Our whole _lives_ are weird shit,” Sam says.

“Do you think Jake still has that mind control thing?” Dean asks suddenly.

“Probably, since I'm still having the visions.”

“Then why aren't you dreaming about him instead of Parker?”

“It isn't like I can choose what to see,” Sam argues, but Dean's making sense. If he's anywhere close to another psychic, he'll usually have a vision about them.

“I'm going to call Bobby,” Sam says, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“How could he know anything about it?” Dean asks.

Sam's already dialling.

“Sam, when I said don't call me every day asking for updates about Dean's case, I didn't mean 'please call every second day instead.'”

“Sorry, Bobby, but this is about something else,” Sam says. He doesn't feel guilty about calling Bobby too much. They're four months into Dean's year and no closer to finding anything to break his deal.

“Okay, what then?” Bobby asks.

“I don't have much,” Sam says and Dean laughs at him. “Do you know of anybody named Parker? I don't know if it's a last name or a nickname or what. Female, blonde, I'd guess about my age, slight build, maybe 5'6”, wears a lot of black, runs surprisingly fast—”

“Sam. Listen to me very carefully,” Bobby interrupts. “You're absolutely sure that her only name is Parker? Nothing else?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Sam says.

“Stay the hell away from her.”

“What? Bobby...” He isn't making sense.

“I'm serious, Sam! She's dangerous!” Bobby pauses and then goes on. “She's the best damn thief in the world. You think you have problems with Bela? Parker is a thousand times worse.”

“Bobby,” Sam laughs, “We don't have anything worth stealing.” Dean's eyebrows go up.

“Oh yeah? You don't think the Colt is worth anything? Or that car your brother's so crazy about?”

Good point. Sam's glad Dean can't hear Bobby's side of the conversation. “Okay, fine. Can you tell me more about her? Who are those guys with her?”

“Guys? There are no 'guys with her'. Parker works alone,” Bobby says.

“Maybe she does, but there were guys with her yesterday.” Sam clears his throat. “Another thing I wanted to ask you, Bobby: is there any way Jake could have come back?” Dean stops pacing restlessly around.

There's a long pause. “No, Sam. He was shot, he died, we burned his body, and mixed salt with the ashes before we buried them. He won't even be a ghost.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” Sam shakes his head at Dean's questioning look and Dean rolls his eyes.

“You doing okay, Sam? I know this whole thing is hard on you.”

Sam does not need sympathy right now. It won't change anything and it wastes time. “I'm fine. Thanks, Bobby.”

“Anytime.” Sam hangs up.

“Parker's the 'best thief in the world' apparently,” he tells Dean.

“Uh huh,” Dean says, disbelievingly. “Let's go get some food, I'm starving.”

~

It's almost time and Eliot's taking out his nerves on food prep. Parker and Hardison are wandering around the kitchen, getting in everyone's way. Well, Hardison is getting in their way anyway.

Eliot's phone rings. Half of the kitchen looks up at the noise and looks down just as quickly when he glares at them. He glances at the caller ID and answers right away. “Archie?”

“Eliot, good morning.”

“Are you alright?” Eliot can't think of any other reason why Archie would call him. Parker dances closer.

“In perfect health, thank you. I am simply calling to give you a 'heads up'.”

Eliot can hear the air quotes around the phrase. “What about?” he asks. He shakes his head at Parker and she looks relieved.

“I just got off the line with a contact who was asking about Parker. He seemed to think his information about her is out of date,” Archie says.

“Is it?”

“Of course. I told him Parker and I had lost touch.”

“Thank you.” That's not so far from the truth anyway. Parker's seen Archie three times in the last four years that Eliot knows about.

“How is my girl anyway?” Archie asks.

“Good.”

“And my favourite hacker? Are they still dating?”

“He's fine. Yes.” Eliot knows he sounds angry saying it but dammit, the three of them have been together almost a year and Archie _still_ doesn't know?

“Excellent. Well, take care.”

“I will. Thanks again,” Eliot says and Archie hangs up.

“What did he want?” Parker asks, her hand sneaking forward to steal a bit of the cheese he's grating, telegraphing her motions on purpose. Eliot nudges her away with his elbow.

“Somebody called him and asked about you.”

Parker's eyes widen. “They know my name now,” she says.

Eliot nods. They have to find out what Sam and Dean actually want.

Amy pokes her head into the kitchen. “Um, Chef? Those guys you said to watch for are here,” she says.

“Thank you,” Eliot says. Hardison joins him and Parker.

“I sat them in 18B,” Amy says, over her shoulder as she leaves. 18B is the booth nearest the kitchen door. It's where they talk to clients who feel more comfortable meeting in public places.

“We should meet them all together,” Parker says. She meets Eliot's eyes and he nods. If those guys try to hurt Hardison again, he will definitely throw them out.

“Let's do this,” Hardison says.

“No. Let's go steal some explanations,” Parker corrects.

They all grin at each other and leave the kitchen.

~

Dean is alternating between looking at the menu and keeping an eye on the front door. The restaurant is crowded. They were lucky to get a table at all, let alone a booth.

“Dean,” Sam gasps, staring behind him. Dean turns.

It's them. Jake and Parker and that guy he punched in the face.

Dean's already getting out of the booth and standing up before he's really processed the threat.

“I hear you were asking about me,” Parker says.

The guy Dean fought with is watching him. It's reminding Dean unpleasantly of their last stand-off and his knee twinges.

“How?” Sam asks.

They ignore the question. “We want to talk,” Parker says.

“All of you?” Dean asks.

“We come as a set,” Jake says. “Collect them all.”

The stand-off lasts a few seconds longer.

“Let's talk then,” Sam says.

Jake slides into the booth on Dean's former side, Parker following him. Dean sits down beside Sam.

The other guy sits down next to Parker. It's a four-person booth so the three of them are squeezed in together. Dean wonders suddenly if the guys are dating each other as well as both dating Parker. If you _are_ already dating the same girl, it would almost make sense to...

To distract himself, Dean asks the guy across from him, “What's your name anyway?”

“Eliot,” he says, flatly. Dean's getting the feeling that Eliot doesn't like him.

“And I'm Hardison,” Jake says, taking something out of his pocket. Both Sam and Dean freeze for a second until they see that it's just Jake's phone.

Parker doesn't introduce herself.

Their waitress comes up then. She is unfazed by the addition of three people to the table. “Can I get you anything?” she asks.

“We're, uh, still deciding,” Sam says.

Eliot says, “Three specials for us. Thanks, Amy.”

“No problem, chef,” Amy says and walks away.

“Chef?” Sam asks.

“This is our place,” Parker says. “If you feel like eating, it'll be on the house.”

Eliot smiles like he knows they won't be eating.

“Out of all the restaurants in all of Portland,” Dean mutters to Sam. Sam shakes his head like he can't believe it either.

Parker leans over with her arms on the edge of the table. “What is going on?” she asks.

Sam starts stumbling through the opening lines he uses with the demon-blood psychics. “About a year ago, did something... change for you? Did you start doing things you couldn't do before?”

Parker tilts her head. “Like what?”

Dean watches Jake. He hasn't even been paying attention. He's too busy typing on his phone.

When Dean glances over, he finds out Eliot is watching _him_. Dean would be doing more than watching the guy who punched him in the face and cut his boyfriend. If he wasn't so curious about how the hell Jake is alive, they'd be fighting right now.

Sam lists off a bunch of the side effects. “Headaches, nightmares, weird things happening...” Sam tried the direct approach with these people already and it didn't go well at all so now, he's tiptoeing around actually talking about what's going on.

“Well, you'd know about weird, wouldn't you, Samuel Eugene Winchester,” Jake says.

Sam jumps.

“Open file on you at the FBI with _a lot_ of inexplicable phenomena,” Jake goes on, still looking at his phone. “You were in jail for breaking and entering and are actually on the run right now. Went to Standford, valedictorian, applied to law school, now that's a contrast. And your brother, Dean Henry Winchester, is a fugitive too and has a list of petty criminal charges as long as my arm: mail fraud, credit card fraud, grave desecration, dozens of traffic violations. High school dropout with a _very_ nice car. Looks like they tried to get you both on armed robbery, kidnapping, and wow, multiple counts of first-degree murder but none of that stuck. Both of you from Lawrence, Kansas, parents John and Mary Winchester, both deceased.” He looks up. “Did I miss anything?” he asks, grinning.

All three of them are grinning.

Dean shuts his mouth because it was hanging open. He struggles for words for a minute. “How?” he finally asks.

“I'm a hacker,” Jake says. “I hacked.”

“Psychically?” Sam asks, horrified.

“No!” Jake exclaims. “With my phone! Look.” He shows them a website with 'FBI' at the top, almost too fast to see.

“Can somebody be hacked psychically?” Parker asks.

“Jake can control people. Who knows what other freaky shit he can do by now,” Dean says.

“What part of 'I'm not Jake' are you _still_ not getting?” Jake asks. “Have you never heard of identical twins before?”

“But yesterday, you said you didn't know anyone named Jake,” Sam says.

“I didn't know about him!” Jake yells.

Dean starts to ask him how that's possible but Jake takes a deep breath and keeps going. “I didn't know. I was in the foster system. I thought I knew about my birth family but... I don't know, Jake must have gotten adopted when we were little or something. I don't remember him and _nobody ever told me_.” He sounds so upset that Dean almost believes him.

“How did you know Jake?” Eliot asks.

Sam looks at Dean. Dean shrugs. They might as well tell them everything.

“How much do you know about the supernatural?” Sam asks.

~

Parker squeezes Hardison's leg under the table again before she answers Sam. “Why?” They've been mostly answering questions with questions. It's not the most efficient way to have a discussion but it feels safer.

Sam sighs and leans in to talk more quietly. “So, there was this demon.” He pauses. Parker waits too.

“That's the part where you're supposed to say, 'that's crazy, demons aren't real',” Dean says.

Parker turns her arm over so they can see the anti-possession charm. Hardison and Eliot show theirs too.

Amy shows up with their food then. “Did you decide what you wanted?” she asks Sam and Dean.

“We're good,” Dean says. His stomach makes a huge grumbly noise.

Amy raises her eyebrows. But all she says is, “Okay,” and walks away.

“Are those tattoos?” Sam asks.

“No, I drew them,” Parker says. “Tell me why the demon is important.”

Sam sighs. “I have these visions. They started off like nightmares but then they started coming true. Like watching a movie of the future. That's how we found you. I... I usually have the strongest visions about people like me.”

Her dreams aren't visions. How could they be 'visions' if she never can _see_ anything in them? But the coming true part is the same. Suddenly, Parker realizes this is the moment she dreamed about last night. The smell of the pulled pork in front of her, the way the air feels, the sounds of other people eating together. But she didn't see Sam and Dean across from her, or feel Hardison and Eliot beside her. It isn't like a movie at all. It's broken pieces that only really fit when she already knows what they are.

“What does that have to do with the demon?” Eliot asks, into the silence.

Sam clears his throat. “He... when I was a baby, he fed me some of his blood. And he killed my mom. He didn't kill the mothers every time but... sometimes.”

Parker wants to run. She could jump up on the table or scramble over the back of the booth, and be gone so fast they'd wonder how she did it.

Under the table, her hands go into fists. Hardison presses against her for a second and then away. Eliot turns his shoulder against hers like he's going to stand up out of the booth but pauses, asking her if she wants him to move out of the way.

She takes a shakey breath. She's lived with demon blood inside her since she was a baby. It's hers now.

“I dreamed you asking me about my mother before it happened,” Parker says, interrupting Sam explaining that different people have different powers. He stops talking at once. He and Dean lean forward at the same time.

“Just what you said, in your voice. And that we were outside,” she says. “No images.”

“Are all your visions like that?” Sam asks.

Parker nods.

Dean leans back again. “Wow, that's even worse than yours, Sammy.”

Eliot glares at him.

“Are you guys looking for the demon now?” Hardison asks.

“We killed him,” Dean says.

“Did you kill Jake too?” Eliot's voice is low and cold and hard.

“The demon was pitting us against each other,” Sam says. “He gathered a bunch of people with powers and forced us to fight. He wanted one of us to open a gate to Hell.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“Jake opened it,” Sam says. “I killed him, but it was already done.”

The three of them sit frozen.

Parker sees Amy making her way over to their table. She must be coming to see why they haven't touched their food yet.

Dean bursts out, “Jake killed Sam first! That's why he did it!”

Amy stops, eyes wide. She mimes a phone and mouths 'Cops?' at Parker. Parker shakes her head. Amy backs away.

Parker focusses back on Dean. He says, “I brought Sam back.”

“How?” Parker asks.

“Don't tell her,” Eliot says, suddenly.

“You believe me?” Dean asks. “That I brought my brother back from the dead, and you don't want me to say how I did it?”

“Exactly,” Eliot says. He's angry. Why is he angry? She doesn't understand. Parker doesn't even know where her brother is buried.

“Is the price worth it?” Eliot growls.

“No,” Sam says. Dean turns to him in surprise. “I don't want to be dead, but no, it isn't worth it.”

“There. It wouldn't be worth it to me either,” Eliot says.

Now Parker does understand. She shivers. Eliot leans against her, solid and warm.

Nobody says anything for a minute. Then, Hardison says, “Well. This has been... terrible. Let's never do it again.”

“That's it?” Dean asks. “We're just supposed to _go_ now?”

“I'll help you find the door if you want,” Eliot says. Parker nods.

Sam says, “We haven't talked about everything yet. Don't you want to know more?”

“I have a dead twin brother, Parker can dream the future, and both of those things are down to a demon who's dead now. Thanks for the info, get the fuck out of our brewpub.” Hardison sounds intense, like he's holding back a bunch of emotions.

Eliot starts to stand up.

Dean grabs Sam's arm and pulls him along as he gets up. “But...” Sam protests.

“Go away,” Parker says. They don't need the Winchesters. Hardison will know more than they do about the supernatural by next week.

They leave. Dean doesn't look back but Sam does.

As soon as Sam and Dean are gone, Amy rushes over to the table. “Is everything okay?” she asks.

Parker smiles at her. “Could you take these plates?” she asks, proud she remembered to _ask._ “We're going to have dessert now.”

Eliot snorts but doesn't say no.

Hardison sighs shakily. “Dessert sounds like a great idea, babe.”

Parker stretches her arm over his shoulders. “It'll be good,” she says, but she isn't really talking about food.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's the full poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44127/song-go-and-catch-a-falling-star)  
>  If it sounds familiar, a) John Donne is v popular with the high school English scene and b) it's the poem in _Howl's Moving Castle_ by Diana Wynne Jones


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